Step 1: Scenario Description

Industrial projects are described by, often, a massive amount of digital information, as text documents, 2D/3D drawings, 3D CAD models, specifications, sub-contracts, procedures, work instructions, slide shows etc., even digital audio, digital ink and digital video. How can we be sure that all stakeholders mentioned are taken care of, during the dynamic execution of the project ? We have one case history of a farmer delaying a major project in Norway by one year because he was not invited to the first information meeting !

Step 2, 3 & 4: Generalization, Aggregation, Inheritance, Object Models, Associations, Inheritance, SWOT

Sharp, Finkelstein & Galal, 4), propose that the focus should be on the stakeholder role, instead of on the stakeholder himself. A stakeholder´s influence is therefore defined on the association between stakeholders, rather than on the stakeholder class itself. The stakeholder´s defined role in the project is used in the descriptive SWOT analysis.

The term object is used on both concrete (e.g. person) and abstract (e.g. information) stakeholder classes.

Linguistic analysis is used to extract nouns (object, “things”, or role)  and verbs (association, stative verb or verb phrase, “action”) from the project scenario descriptive material.

Classification, generalization (inheritance) and aggregation are used to simplify and describe relevant stakeholder problem areas.

To give you an idea of these steps of the process, this is how we did the analysis before starting a high-tech export project in an Arabic county, with input from the Global Corruption Report 2003, 5):

Step 4: SWOT Analysis

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Step 5: Strategy for Involvement

“Ordinary citizens need access to government-held information in order to exercise their rights in just about every phase of their lives - whether to gain entry to education, apply for a job, gain access to a poverty alleviation scheme, build or buy a house, start a business or collect a pension. Without it, they are ready prey to the corrupt and the abusive”.

“.....The claims of the citizen are much more compelling. If we ask, ´Who owns the information we demand ?´the answer must surely be, ´We, the people, not them, the state. ´”

Step 6: Strategy for Implementation

The stakeholder analysis is part of the preparation and execution of the project. Decision Gates will be used to decide if the project should be continued, and if the execution basis should be improved. Standard check lists (PDRIs) are used, incl. weight factors between execution elements. Project risk assessments are performed, either by simple spreadsheet analysis, or by making a dynamic model of the project to sort out risk elements, organizational issues, bottlenecks etc. Balance Scorecards will be implemented. 

Step 7: Strategy for Follow-up

Project progress and use of time, will be followed-up by a set of measurable units, incl. how essential resources (stakeholders) are utilized:

Primary stakeholder classes will be project management, steering committee and customers. These stakeholder classes will probably have a static degree of influence on the project as long as the project progress is on, or above-, target. If the progress goes to the “negative” side we will assume that the influence from the project management will decrease, and the influence from steering committee and customer will increase. The timeline factor is therefore important to build into the project dynamic models:

Similar assumptions (calculations) will be establish for all major stakeholder classes, based upon the project´s performance indicators, and built into the dynamic- and functional models of the project.